January 14, 2011

A New York Times article picks up on Charles Murray's perception of Amy Chua's book on Chinese mothering:

But reading the book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” it can be hard to tell when she is kidding.

“In retrospect, these coaching suggestions seem a bit extreme,” she writes in the book after describing how she once threatened to burn her daughter’s stuffed animals if she did not play a piano composition perfectly. “On the other hand, they were highly effective.”

In interviews, she comes off as unresolved. “I think I pulled back at the right time,” she said. “I do not think there was anything abusive in my house.” Yet, she added, “I stand by a lot of my critiques of Western parenting. I think there’s a lot of questions about how you instill true self-esteem.”

Her real crime, she said, may have been telling the truth. “I sort of feel like people are not that honest about their own parenting,” she said. “Take any teenage household, tell me there is not yelling and conflict.”

One thing you can say for Ms. Chua is that she's got guts. When I read her book World on Fire in early 2003 to review it, I learned something about current history that I had been totally uninformed about before. I was startled by Chua's passage below (which was reprinted in the Times of London late in 2003). Even as an avid consumer of the news, I had never heard these facts before I read Chua's book on market dominant minorities:

IN THE spring of 2000, a professor whom I’ll call Jerry White was furiously trying to finish an article on the debacle of Russian privatisation. Jerry and his co-authors had served as legal advisers to the Russian Government during the country’s mass privatisation process in the late 1990s. The article described how Russia’s pro-market reforms had gone horribly awry. Instead of dispersing ownership and creating functioning markets, these reforms had allowed a small group of industrialists and bankers to plunder Russia, turning themselves almost overnight into the billionaire owners of Russia’s crown jewels while the country spiralled into chaos and lawlessness.

It seemed to me that most of the key players in the privatisation of Russia were Jewish.

As it turns out, six out of seven of Russia’s wealthiest and, at least until recently, most powerful oligarchs are Jewish. The six Jewish businessmen most frequently called oligarchs are: Roman Abramovich; Pyotr Aven; Boris Berezovsky; Mikhail Fridman; Vladimir Gusinsky; and Mikhail Khodorkovsky [I recently read Khodorkovsky is half-Jewish]. The seventh oligarch, the only “full-blooded ethnic Russian”, is Vladimir Potanin.

The height of their influence was reached in 1996 when the Yeltsin Government hung on the verge of political and financial collapse. Already wealthy, the oligarchs collectively put forth the so-called “loans-for-shares” deal — now notorious, but at the time grudgingly endorsed by Western advisers and Russian economists.

Essentially, the oligarchs offered loans and political support to the Government in exchange for majority shares, at a fraction of their potential market value, in the behemoths of the Russian economy, a half-dozen massive enterprises breathtakingly rich in nickel, gold and oil deposits.

Despite the inevitable rumours, these men did not become billionaires through violence or mafiya tactics. Rather, they became billionaires by playing the game more effectively and ruthlessly than anybody else during Russia’s free-for-all transition to capitalism.

Russia’s incipient corporate economy operated in practically a legal vacuum at the time, with no laws prohibiting insider trading or other forms of self-dealing. “Russia has been looted all right,” says Chrystia Freeland, in Sale of the Century, “but the biggest crimes haven’t been clandestine or violent or even, in the strict legal sense, crimes at all. Russia was robbed in broad daylight, by businessmen who broke no laws, assisted by the West ’s best friends in the Kremlin.”

Chua, herself, is descended from the market-dominant Chinese minority that controls the economy of the Philippines.

espite the inevitable rumours, these men did not become billionaires through violence or mafiya tactics. Rather, they became billionaires by playing the game more effectively and ruthlessly than anybody else during Russia’s free-for-all transition to capitalism. jerry 'snapped' because he knew it was true, except this part- they did engage in assinations, rigging auctions and had the help jews in the US, while the US was allegedly being a fair arbitrator- about as fair as they are in the middle east.

Despite the inevitable rumours, these men did not become billionaires through violence or mafiya tactics. Rather, they became billionaires by playing the game more effectively and ruthlessly than anybody else during Russia’s free-for-all transition to capitalism.

What a crock.

The violence and mafiya tactics of the oligarchs are well established.

I wonder want Amy Chua would make of the latest figures for East Asian unemployment in New Zealand.

East Asians in New Zealand have a 10 percent unemployment rate (versus 5 percent for whites)despite being more numerate and generally better educated than the natives.

A few possible reasons - NZ is tough place for small businesses and there is a high level of competition for graduate jobs (large numbers of New Zealand graduates seek out jobs overseas). Another factor I suspect is the larger size of the East Asian population, which means more highly East Asians are competing with each other for the limited number of modestly paying graduate jobs.

You could probably make a good case that East Asian immigration is actually bad for East Asians since it undermines their market dominant minority status.

Much of Summers's tenure at the Treasury Department was focused on international economic issues. He was deeply involved in the Clinton administration's effort to bail out Mexico and Russia when those nations had currency crises. Summers encouraged then-Russian leader Boris Yeltsin to use the same "three-'ations'" of policy he advocated in the Clinton Administration-- "privatization, stabilization, and liberalization."

Seriously? With all your interest in Jews, you, until 2003, have never heard that the most recent "Rape of Russia" was orchestrated by a large majority of Jews, both domestic and imported from the USA? It's almost hard to believe.

The violence and mafiya tactics of the oligarchs are well established.

Violence and graft largely were the "game" of carving up the old Soviet Union--employed by losers as well as winners, so yes, they outplayed the competition. You can choose to believe in ethnic Russians' natural gentlemanliness leaving them defenseless against a rapacious minority if you like, but I would retain some skepticism.

Of course, what they had was their connections to Larry Summers' gang and thus the US, and we would be naive to discount the importance of ethnic affinity, but let's not pretend the Russkies got took because they didn't know how to lie, cheat or steal.

how she once threatened to burn her daughter’s stuffed animals if she did not play a piano composition perfectly. a near perfect description of the Oriental mind.

but let's not pretend the Russkies got took because they didn't know how to lie, cheat or steal.yes but the 'problem' is that we were allegedly there as some sort of bringer of free market freedom and capitalism.

I have also heard many jewish firms got funding from congress to buy up stuff, and when even Yeltsin baulked about the selling of their famous porcelin factory, Al Gore (at the request of Jewish financeres) got on the phone and pressured him and said 'hey, you have to let the free market work'

What is even more extraordinary is MSM refusal to even acknowledge all this ethnic scheming- as epitomized by 'jerry'. How often do these 'jerry's willfully ignore reality in our universities, in msm, etc?

in fact, MSM is still trying to paint the jewish oligarchs as 'victims'.

"Despite the inevitable rumours, these men did not become billionaires through violence or mafiya tactics."

Well, there are also obviously different degrees to everything...

For example, I remember back a year or two ago, I stumbled across some interesting articles about the Oligarchs and their activities written by a reasonably prominent leftwing (Jewish) American journalist, whose name I forget. He had also later published a blistering book on the same topic, and I think it was a very positive review of that book in a back issue of a mainstream leftist opinion magazine (The Nation?) which originally caught my eye.

I became a little curious about what he'd written more recently, and discovered he'd died of a mysterious illness in his forties or so soon after the book was published. This made me even more curious, so I went to Amazon and ordered a copy of the book, a used copy since the book was no longer in print. I then eventually discovered that despite the apparent Amazon claims, all used copies of the book listed were "no longer available" from any of the various resellers.

Inside Russia itself, I think an awful lot of prominent journalists who did investigative work on the Oligarchs or wrote unflattering things about them came to unfortunate ends, notably the editor of Forbes Russia, who'd written some harsh words about that Berezhovsky(sp?) fellow, and was mysteriously assassinated on a Moscow street a few years ago. For these reasons, I suspect that Putin's personal network of old KGB friends and colleagues proved very helpful to him at various times over the last decade or so.

So I certainly can't fault Chua's slight caution regarding some of these sensitive matters. After all, the musical skills of Louisa and Sophia would surely deteriorate if their mother were no longer available to force them to practice three hours each day...

"The murder of a relative is horrible for anyone, anywhere ... For the rest of the family, though, there was an added element of disgrace. For the Chinese, luck is a moral attribute, and a lucky person would never be murdered. Like having a birth defect, or marrying a Filipino, being murdered is shameful."

You can choose to believe in ethnic Russians' natural gentlemanliness leaving them defenseless against a rapacious minority if you like, but I would retain some skepticism.

Of course, what they had was their connections to Larry Summers' gang and thus the US, and we would be naive to discount the importance of ethnic affinity, but let's not pretend the Russkies got took because they didn't know how to lie, cheat or steal.

You don't have to "choose to believe" anything about the Russians. You don't have to "pretend" anything about them either. All you have to _know_ is that it's their country.

I wouldn't be so sure the Jewish oligarchs beat the Gentile Russians at their game. On the contrary, Putin and his siloviki played a subtler game: let the oligarchs enrich themselves outrageously in the Wild East transition, and then expropriate from them. It's easier politically to expropriate from a crony capitalist than to do so from the country itself. Fewer people pay attention to the second bounce of the ball.

As for Summers and the Harvard Jews, they were useful idiots (or naifs, to be more accurate). Summers quit his White House job so he wouldn't lose his Harvard tenure, which wouldn't be an issue if he had filled his pockets at the Russian trough. Summers and his crew didn't understand how power works in countries like Russia. They didn't understand that laws are meaningless without rule of law, and that free market capitalism doesn't work without rule of law. Russia isn't the only place they made that mistake.

They made the same mistake in other places too. Remember when American Jewish plutocrats poured money into Gaza to buy the fruit and flowers businesses from the Israeli settler and give them to the Palestinians -- and were surprised when the Palestinians looted the greenhouses? It's that same naivete common among free marketers who have never lived in countries where the dominant power is a form of organized crime. The same blowhards who thought imposing low tax rates on post-Saddam Iraq would lead to an economic boom there.

Probably Bernard Black. He had a Journal article in 2000, "Russian Privatization and Corporate Governance: What Went Wrong?". He was at Stanford at the time, and has Princeton connections, so they'd have been in the same circles.

"As it turns out, six out of seven of Russia’s wealthiest and, at least until recently, most powerful oligarchs are Jewish."

This list, as is common with such lists, is incomplete. For one reason or the other those seven oligarchs had the most publicity. But there were many more oligarchs than that. For instance, two men you never heard of--Vagit Alekhperov and Rem Vyakhirev--were significantly more powerful than any of those seven. Who were these men? The then heads of Lukoil and Gazprom, Russia's biggest oil and gas companies, respectively. Alekhperov is a Muslim Azeri, Vyakhirev I am not sure but certainly not a Jew. And that's just two examples.

I'm surprised you don't make more of the fact that Chua's study of market dominant minorities is as HBD-blind as her parenting advice. In the first instance she may be bowing to intellectual decorum, but everything we know about behavior genetics should cast suspicion on the genuinely cruel child-rearing techniques that defends as "effective." Threatening to burn a child's cherished toys because that child falls short of perfection is unconscionable behavior, and there is zero evidence that it serves any greater purpose. Ms. Chua may or may not be aware of the researches of David C. Rowe, Judith Rich Harris and others, but parents considering her nurture-assumptionist tips should have an opportunity to hear the full story.

"As for Summers and the Harvard Jews, they were useful idiots (or naifs, to be more accurate). Summers quit his White House job so he wouldn't lose his Harvard tenure, which wouldn't be an issue if he had filled his pockets at the Russian trough. Summers and his crew didn't understand how power works in countries like Russia. They didn't understand that laws are meaningless without rule of law, and that free market capitalism doesn't work without rule of law. Russia isn't the only place they made that mistake. "

Ridiculous. Are you saying Summers and company just happened to run the process of privatization in Russia in a way that lead to their own small ethnic group getting hold of most of Russia's wealth? It was all a big coincidence?

"Ridiculous. Are you saying Summers and company just happened to run the process of privatization in Russia..."

If you think Summers and his Harvard friends ran the process, you're a naif too. They were useful cover, stupidly putting the stamp of free market orthodoxy on a 'process' that was more chaotic and corrupt than anything else.

Other, probably more relevant things you could say is that she's got tenure and is non-White.

My suspicion is that Prof. Chua has been gradually working, whether she is consciously doing so or not, towards staking out a position for her natal market-dominant-minority within the center of the country's current intellectual elite while the older one to which her husband belongs gradually dissipates to low birthrates and outmarriage. It's already been stated previously, though, that HBD is a titanic blind spot in her thinking. (and one that could be serious enough to actually get her into trouble if she went there!)

My experience in dealing with overseas Chinese tends to make them not very inclined towards genetic/biological explanations. They tend to gravitate more towards the thinking typified by Chua that there was "something" about their family and their parents that made them just so gosh darn awesome (especially compared to other Chinese who weren't smart enough to set up a bank in the Philippines or an electronics company in Malaysia). This crowd had a much-ballyhooed fascination with so-called "Asian values" about fifteen years ago that you don't hear much anymore after the East Asian financial crisis and the cronyism and double-dealing it revealed knocked a lot of the sheen off the idea.

Chinese have around a 2 Standard Deviation IQ advantage over Filippinos. Ashkenazi have around a 0.6 SD IQ advantage over white gentile Russians, or Americans.

It seems to me that the Chinese economic dominance over the Filippinos is pretty muc inevitable, even with heavy discrimination against them, but the Jewish dominance over Russians or Americans much less so, and requiring of different tactics.

Also, even the average Chinaman will be an 'elite' in the Philippines, but many American & Russian Jews are not part of the elite, and not so different from their countrymen.

Re the possibility of Chinese-Americans becoming a market dominant minority in the USA (and Canada):

Chinese students already dominate engineering & science courses in many Universities, and in some places they dominate the University as a whole. However their ca 5 point IQ advantage over white gentiles is not huge - there are many more very clever whites than there are Chinese. And they have both a lower overall IQ than Ashkenazi, and much lower verbal IQ.

So while they should continue to do well, I don't see much prospect of them coming to dominate the USA*. Some other Anglo countries, like Australia, which have smaller Jewish populations and more Chinese, seem to offer better prospects.

*Although Chua's tactic of marrying a Jewish man seems inspired from an HBD perspective, her children may get the 'best of both'.

“Chua, herself, is descended from the market-dominant Chinese minority that controls the economy of the Philippines.”

Now, we must decide how to resolve the Chinese Question. Let’s see, we could expand Ivy League “reverse” discrimination from 80% anti-Asian to 100% anti-Asian--the Malaysian approach, or we could take the Indonesian approach circa 1998 of military-orchestrated murder and rape. Actually, I could not think of a starker contrast between Russian oligarch swindling and Chinese excessively responsible behavior.

Thomas said:“This crowd had a much-ballyhooed fascination with so-called ‘Asian values’ about fifteen years ago that you don't hear much anymore after the East Asian financial crisis and the cronyism and double-dealing it revealed knocked a lot of the sheen off the idea.”

I think there has been an odd interplay between Western triumphalism in the wake of the George-Soros-Asian-financial-crisis and the Western paradox-of-thrift-consumer-confidence doctrine. Asia is bad because it is patriarchical, Confucian, and miserly. The anger directed at Chua reminds me of George H.W. Bush’s attack on Alan Greenspan for raising interest rates and costing him the election. Children should play football instead of piano, and money should be loose so that we can blame predatory lenders for our bubbles. I might add that “Asian Values” was most closely associated with Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore, which weathered that financial crisis rather well. The crisis was primarily a crisis of Japanese banks lending to Southeast Asia.

Lee Kuan Yew himself is a staunch believer in HBD, and expresses it openly. Probably the only world leader to defy the PC line.http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_624097.html

My suspicion is that Prof. Chua has been gradually working, whether she is consciously doing so or not, towards staking out a position for her natal market-dominant-minority within the center of the country's current intellectual elite while the older one to which her husband belongs gradually dissipates to low birthrates and outmarriage.

Your suspicion is wrong:

"New Study Finds More Jews in the United States Than Previously Thought"

12/22/2010

http://www.forward.com/articles/134138/

The whole "Jews are dissipating due to low birthrates and outmarriage" meme keeps getting repeated even though it's highly dubious. Jews tend to "pick-up" genes from other groups while cementing their identity. It's more likely Chua's daughters will marry Jewish males than Chinese males.

The anger directed at Chua reminds me of George H.W. Bush’s attack on Alan Greenspan for raising interest rates and costing him the election. Children should play football instead of piano.

My anger at Chua has nothing to do with politics. If she's not joking, if she really did threaten to burn her daughter's stuffed animals, then she's a heartless bitch, and her actions constitute child abuse.

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC-TV) - Ninety students who attend Frayser High School in Memphis are currently pregnant or have already had a baby this year. The stunning number means nearly 11 percent of the school's approximately 800 students are already experiencing the trials of parenthood.

A Title One school, Frayser receives federal dollars based on the number of students from low income families who qualify for free or reduced lunch. Nearly 100 percent of the students who attend the school qualify.

Such a high rate of pregnancy at one school is dire, but sources tell Action News 5 there is a massive initiative in the works dedicated to preventing teen pregnancy in the Frayser community.

The initiative will include:

- After-school and in-school programs funded with grant money, operated by a local non-profit that already does some work for city schools.

- A $250,000 advertising campaign targeted at the Frayser community that is based on research done in focus groups at the school.

- A federally funded component that emphasizes the responsibility of young men, operated through a Memphis hospital

The city of Memphis is also a partner in the initiative, and could offer some support, possibly through the Social Innovation Fund. ...

Fred: "On the contrary, Putin and his siloviki played a subtler game: let the oligarchs enrich themselves outrageously in the Wild East transition, and then expropriate from them."

What a diabolically clever plot!

This leads me to suspect that something similar has been happening in America over the last couple of decades. I think that the "Harvard WASP Mafia" which our old friend "Whiskey" is always denouncing has been the hidden hand behind the rise of our own domestic Oligarchs---almost none of whom are WASPs---quietly manipulating them into accumulating an astonishing fraction of the total national wealth into their few hands, and now preparing to confiscate this huge pile of loot in a pseudo-populist uprising.

In fact, I think that Obama might even be their chosen vehicle, given that he's a fanatically anti-Semitic Muslim, now railroading the country toward raw socialistic communism despite the contrary provisions of the U.S. Constitution.

"Seriously? With all your interest in Jews, you, until 2003, have never heard that the most recent 'Rape of Russia' was orchestrated by a large majority of Jews, both domestic and imported from the USA? It's almost hard to believe."

Those Jews played crooked but no more so than others. Their advantage was brainy crookedness, which goes helluva lot further than boorish stupid crookedness of most Russians. Also, Jews long have had a work ethic while Russians don't. Jews work hard because it's in their blood. Russians work hard only when forced to, as under Stalin. When Russians are not forced, they are into vodka and dancing with bears. In the book INSIDE STALIN'S ARHCIVES, Jonathan Brent relates a state-run business in Russia where few Jews do all the work while most Russians arrive to chit chat and have coffee breaks. I was hesitant to take this seriously as Brent is a real a**hole--he says Nixon would have been like Stalin with absolute power, when, in fact, men like Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR abused federal power much more; he really should look in the mirror as he admits that in college, he told his girlfriend it had been completely justified for the Reds to kill the Tsar's entire family; though most victims of communism were non-Jews, Brent dwells mostly on Jewish victims while saying nothing of Jewish killers who served under Stalin.

Anyway, Brent's account of Russian workers was corroborated by a Polish friend(who, by the way, has no affection for Jews). She said she worked for a Polish-Russian literary translation company and traveled back and forth between the two countries numerous times, and it was generally the case that the people doing most of the work were a handful of Jews while most Russians, as Brent's book said, mostly showed up to work to socialize, take a nap, and pick up the paycheck. So, when the safety-net system of communism vanished, guess which people did more to grab the wealth?

Of course, Russians--or a handful of gangsters around Putin--eventually won out but through muscle, not brains, and largely because there's no rule of law in Russia. (Putin rose up through the state gangsterism of the KGB; though a smart guy, state gangsterism requires less brains than big business Machivellianism.) Similarly, though Jewish gangsters had more brains, Italians won out in organized crime because they were more numerous and had more muscle. You see it in the movie CASINO. But because US is about rule of law, and since Jews dominate the courts, Jews won out over Italian gangsters in Las Vegas. Jews on Wall Street bought them out, as the final segment of CASINO shows. If US had no rule of law, the majority whites would find Putin-ish ways to take power back from the Jews. This isn't to say Jews respect the rule of law; it seems more like they know how to use it to their advantage.

"I have also heard many jewish firms got funding from congress to buy up stuff, and when even Yeltsin baulked about the selling of their famous porcelin factory, Al Gore (at the request of Jewish financeres) got on the phone and pressured him and said 'hey, you have to let the free market work'."

American Jews aided Russian Jews no doubt, but we should ask ourselves... why are American Jews so powerful and why were Russian Jews so effective in working with American Jews? If special US aid is all that takes for a people to succeed, why did so much of US aid go to waste in Africa, Latin America, Middle East, etc? US has pumped gazillions into Afghanistan, but what happened to all the money? How effective have Iraqis been with US aid? Now, compare what Israelis did with US aid. So, US aid alone doesn't answer it. In the future, US aid will do more for Vietnam than for Haiti or Cambodia because Vietnamese are more talented. It's not just about the money but what a people are capable of doing with that money. US has also pumped a lot of cash into Central Asian muslim nations--former Soviet republics--but nothing has come of it. Irish-Americans have interceded for Ireland, Greek Americans for Greeks, Armenian-Americans for Armenia, etc, but all these people don't have the power of Jews. Why? Jewish-Americans are smarter, thus more powerful, and non-American Jews abroad, also highly intelligent and industrious, are effective in working with Jewish-Americans. But Greek-Americans aren't as smart, and Greeks in Greece are a bunch of lazy louts. And Irish are a bunch of drunken bums.

Though Russian Jews did pull a lot of dirty tricks in the 90s, they did force a wrenching creative destruction that made some of the successes of the Putin yrs possible. Putin and his hoods took over or muscled in on new industries created by Jews. Many of these Jews were greedy, vulgar, and tasteless--like Moe Green--, but they were visionaries of sorts. And American Jews are understandably in Hyman Roth revenge mode. Just as Michael avenged his father Vito and Hyman Roth tried to avenge his son-figure Moe, American Jews are pissed at how Putin Corleone muscled out the Jews who created the new order in Russia.

This is why Russian gangsters are the big theme in books and movies today. It's Jewish brains vs Russian muscle. Russian gangsters like Putin want to use Jewish brains but wanna make sure Jews understand that he and his kind have the power. Just like the Italians using the Jewish guy in CASINO. And just like how Jewish brains created Las Vegas but Italian muscle took it over, at least for awhile.

This Amy Chua is funny. I believe she dislikes Asian Culture with a passion, this is why she married white, has half white children, and lives in a white society. She writes or portray Asian Ways(chinese mothers beating their children, starving them, etc) as superior to White ways of doing things. Subconsciously, Whites perceive this as salvage-like. However, consciously, they view Asian and Asian culture as superior to their liberal ways of doing things. As an Asian woman who married white and has half white children, She feels justified in her marriage and breeding with whites. It's like saying, I married white and bred half white kids because the Asian genetics and culture is salvaged and sexist. This is a very good tactic that asian women use in white society. However, Whites will not pick this up consciously.

If This amy chua believes what she states, she would married a chinese man, had all chinese children, and lives in China. She doesn't. I still admired how she has captured the white conscious minds and enjoys a very good and profitable living at it. One thing you can not say about Asian women is they are dumb. They are not. They understand how white society works and it's inherent weaknesses, and they exploit those weaknesses to the max profitability allowed under the law. Bravo to Amy!

This Amy Chua is funny. I believe she dislikes Asian Culture with a passion, this is why she married white, has half white children, and lives in a white society. She writes or portray Asian Ways(chinese mothers beating their children, starving them, etc) as superior to White ways of doing things. Subconsciously, Whites perceive this as salvage-like. However, consciously, they view Asian and Asian culture as superior to their liberal ways of doing things. As an Asian woman who married white and has half white children, She feels justified in her marriage and breeding with whites. It's like saying, I married white and bred half white kids because the Asian genetics and culture is salvaged and sexist. This is a very good tactic that asian women use in white society. However, Whites will not pick this up consciously.

If This amy chua believes what she states, she would married a chinese man, had all chinese children, and lives in China. She doesn't. I still admired how she has captured the white conscious minds and enjoys a very good and profitable living at it. One thing you can not say about Asian women is they are dumb. They are not. They understand how white society works and it's inherent weaknesses, and they exploit those weaknesses to the max profitability allowed under the law. Bravo to Amy!

Of course, the main culpability of the disaster that unfolded in Yeltsin's Russia and his cack-handed 'shock therapy' economics policy (a ridiculous name for a ridiculous policy), has to be laid at the feet of 'smart Harvard economist' (oh! how I wince whenever I read THAT introduction!), Jeffrey Sachs, who 'devised' (if that's the right word), that madhouse economic policy and of whom it can be quite legitimately stated has the blood of *millions* on his hands (those millions iclude the poorest, the meekest, the most wretched).Rubbish, charlatan economists are not just something readers at isteve can taunt, mock and laugh at - they actually cost lives.If you don't believe me study the excess mortality figures in Russia before and after Sachs and his lackey Yeltsin worked their 'magic'. The Chinese were fully aware of the Russian disaster - and how it was caused by rash, braying voices screaming 'democracy!!!'.Consequently, the story of Russia and how Jeffrey Sachs starved and froze to death millions of the innocent is used by Chinese politburo chiefs (those hard unsmiling men with slicked back hair and thick glasses)as both a moral and object lesson to hotheaded Chinese of dubious loyalty who wish to change the status quo. The lesson is heeded by the general Chinese populace.As Russia slipped further into the Sachs dictated mire, China went on to victory after victory, strength to strength under the 'undemocratic unreformed dictatorship'. The force of this moral on the Chinese population at large must never, but nver be underestimated.

Soviet Russia was overtly anti-Semitic (to the point of great hostility to Jews, Israel, and the practice of the Jewish Religion). How that equates to a "Jewish plot" successfully run against the KGB and its successors baffles me.

"Of course, the main culpability of the disaster that unfolded in Yeltsin's Russia and his cack-handed 'shock therapy' economics policy (a ridiculous name for a ridiculous policy), has to be laid at the feet of 'smart Harvard economist'"

It would have been a disaster under ANY circumstances because the USSR was bust. Most Russians got used to cradle-to-grave security--even if it wasn't much--were woefully unprepared to take risks and responsibility in the new economy. I've spoken to many Russian emigres in America who told me epic accounts of laziness under the old system. 3 hr lunch breaks, 2 weeks to paint a single room, shoddy tv sets built by drunken bums, etc. But since most people got something out of this system, they'd figured it was better than nothing and would/should last forever. Of course, most Russians wanted western-style prosperity under the new order but didn't want to put in the work, take the risks, and toil for long hrs. In retrospect, a neo-fascist system employing the power of the state to instill orderliness, discipline,and work ethic--as Prussia under Frederick the Great--might have been preferable, but everything's easier in hindsight.

Yeltsin was a deeply flawed figure but, like Khrushchev, a key figure in modern Russian history. A drunken intemperate fool manipulated by others but also a man with courage and integrity. Yeltsin was fired by Gorbachev because he took reforms further; and he stood against communism during the coup, even risking his life. He wasn't only about power. Khrushchev too, also deeply flawed, had something like a conscience(at least within the historical/political context of post-Stalinist Russia). He didn't have to make the secret speech on Stalin but something--a kind of crude but honest peasant moral sense--compelled him to do so. Both Khruschev and Yeltsin, due to their intemperance and simple-mindedness, were unfit to rule a modern nation, but there was something refreshing in their candor and willingness to throw caution to the winds at times. In a century of infallible god-like leaders, soulless technocrats, professional politicians, and opportunistic populists, Khrushchev and Yeltsin stand out men who spilled out their private souls out in public. Much of it was puke but there were some pearls of truth in the mix.

"My anger at Chua has nothing to do with politics. If she's not joking, if she really did threaten to burn her daughter's stuffed animals, then she's a heartless bitch, and her actions constitute child abuse."

Those Jews played crooked but no more so than others. Their advantage was brainy crookedness, which goes helluva lot further than boorish stupid crookedness of most Russians. Also, Jews long have had a work ethic while Russians don't. Jews work hard because it's in their blood. Russians work hard only when forced to, as under Stalin. When Russians are not forced, they are into vodka and dancing with bears.

That sounds about right.

A lot of Jews were barred from the top jobs in the Soviet bueracracy, so they concentrated themselves in the black market private sector. They acquired the capital, business skills, and infrastructure that placed them in a position to buy up the Soviet Union's state-owned assets.

The corruption arose because a lot of businessmen bribed the bueracrats to give excessively low valuations to state assets.

There was a tremendous amount of violence among the businessmen, gangsters, KGB, buercrats, street crimininals, and all sorts of other types after the fall of the Soviet Union. Those that acquired assets through bribey, fraud, and violence flaunted their wealth quite a bit, at a time when the nation was suffering through unemployment and inflation. So there was quite a bit of support for Putin's take down of the Oligarchs.

The Jewish v.s. non-Jewish angle is a bit played up, as some Jewish oligarchs, such as Roman Abramovich, played ball with Putin and kept their wealth.

As people, Russians have a lot of intellectual potential and talent. Unfortunately, corruption, violence, alchoholism, drug addiction, abortion, street thuggery, prostitution, chaos, and cynicism are breaking apart their society. Right now, the country is in a dark age and the people want a strong leader to do something.

>Summers wasn't very competent at running merely Harvard, so I doubt if he was running Russia.<

On the other hand, his running Russia would explain his relative neglect of Harvard.

Wouldn't it?

Fred said

>Fewer people pay attention to the second bounce of the ball.<

I'm putting that on my stationery.

Simon said

>Chua's tactic of marrying a Jewish man<

"Tactic" = not as absurd as it seems. Years ago I knew a Filapina who frequently enthused that the best life strategy is to intermarry with Jews. She even used the J-word above a whisper. Wonder where she is now.

"Despite the inevitable rumours, these men did not become billionaires through violence or mafiya tactics."

"This is incorrect. There was lots of violence. Private armies, hit men, the whole thing."

Of course, and Chua isn't denying that. Her point is the biggest winners resorted to something other than strongarm tactics. There was a lot of organized crime--and still is--in Russia, but most criminals, even the most ruthless ones, didn't make it to the top. Also, many rich people hired private armies TO PROTECT THEMSELVES from organzied criminals. To succeed at the higher levels, one needs to think beyond one's guns. Just like terrorism is for the weak, guns are often for the less smart. The men who became the oligarchs simply didn't have the power and muscle to force Kremlin to shower them with so many favors. How could a handful of Jews in antisemitic Russia do that? If your average Russian hood was content to rob and extort other businesses in pure gangland style, the Jews had bigger ideas. It's like when Hyman Roth says Pantangeli is 'small potatoes'. Jews could see plain as day that (1) Russians had no aptitude for business (2) Russians were barbarous and crude (3) Russians were corrupt, lazy, and had no respect for rule of law. Jews could see how this would lead to social, political, and economic meltdown and desperation at all levels of society. With no more cards to play, Russian government would have to ask for help, to be bailed out. And Jews would offer it... for a price. Jews would take over entire industries for cheap--largely because inept Russians ran them to the ground--and improve and build them into modern enterprises. There's a similar deal between Africans and Chinese. Africans ran everything into ground, so Chinese offer development but... at a price. The fact remains that if Russians hadn't been such idiots, Jews could not have had the opportunity to gain so much. Some might call it 'looting' but some might call it 'salvaging'. What Russians turned into a junkheap, Jews bought at bargain prices and turned them into viable industries. A nation isn't rich because it has lots of natural resources. A nation becomes rich by the smart exploitation and management of those resources. Congo is as resource-rich as South Africa but dirt poor because Africans don't know how to run shit. And South African economy grew because whites 'looted' those natural resources and created industries that effectively exploited them. Of course, this led to resentment on the part of the black masses who say 'whites stole everything'. And we hear the same stuff from Russians about Jews(and from Latin Americans and Arabs about American/European corporations with the know-how and skills to exploit their natural resources). But that is too simplistic. Of course, there are crooked Jews, like the villains on Wall Street, but Russian Jews did as much to save as well as rob new Russia.

Putin and his people are patriots, Russian nationalists who now and then give a few minutes of consideration to Russia and its people (to the extent realpoltik permits this, anyway). There is no evidence that they are parasites like, and thus rivals of, the oligarch gangsters. It is true that the two groups are opponents, of course.

Were I an ethnic Russian, I would be less depressed with Putin in charge than with Berezovsky or equivalent. Additional "creative destruction" is something Russians don't require, unless the goal is to finish them off.

anon:"As Russia slipped further into the Sachs dictated mire, China went on to victory after victory, strength to strength under the 'undemocratic unreformed dictatorship'.The force of this moral on the Chinese population at large must never, but nver be underestimated."

It's a hard truth to take that China may be better off now, than if the Democrats had won at Tiananmen Square.

Russian emigres are among the most hardworking and successful because the majority of them are Jewish. And they left Russia not only because of antisemitism but because they got tired of working with corrupt lazy Russians who don't know how to work. And they are also a lot more hardworking than most rightwing Americans who gripe about everything. Despite their political leanings, a liberal Russian Jewish emigre is more likely to be self-reliant and responsible than many rightwing redstate conservatives who actually depend on government for lots of stuff. I know enough 'white trash' people in Kentucky and Tennessee who vote Republican and say all the same old crap about big government but don't hesistate to take as much from the government through numerous programs. And I know some former army guys who, though always acting macho and tough, have been suing the military for every excuse imaginable to squeeze as much extra benefits and prizes as possible. And they blame EVERYTHING on Jews.

"Putin and his people are patriots, Russian nationalists who now and then give a few minutes of consideration to Russia and its people (to the extent realpoltik permits this, anyway). There is no evidence that they are parasites like, and thus rivals of, the oligarch gangsters. It is true that the two groups are opponents, of course."

Putin is a patriot and I respect him. He's kinda like Suharto who understood that without the Chinese there would be no Indonesian economy but who nevertheless made sure that political power remained in Indonesian hands. Putin too knows that Russian cannot do totally without Jews, and he harnesses their power, but he makes sure the Russians are in control. If Putin and Jewish bigshots learn to work well together, it will be good for both sides.

Oh, and before all you Americans out there like to sneer and feel all smug and superior by saying "Stupid Russians, smart Jews", just consider this: Who were the ultimate beneficiaries of the sub-prime fiasco?, exactly who was perched right on top of the pyramid, and thusly to whom all the cashed flowed sans consequences?, you know who issued all the CDOs CDSs and all the rest of the worthless paper, took the money and ran and let the 'little people' sort out the mess? And who are the people who've actually PAID for the debacle?, who's been fired from their jobs, lives in their cars and is immisserated in dire poverty?, whose hard-earneed taxes and eroded savings will actually fund the disaster?, whose been kicked out of their home?, whose life-chances have been destroyed? In fact, the scale of looting in the US sub-prime fiasco dwarfs anything that happened in Russia.

I remember back a year or two ago, I stumbled across some interesting articles about the Oligarchs and their activities written by a reasonably prominent leftwing (Jewish) American journalist, whose name I forget. He had also later published a blistering book on the same topic, and I think it was a very positive review of that book in a back issue of a mainstream leftist opinion magazine (The Nation?) which originally caught my eye.

You, RKU, a reader of The Nation? Now why am I not even slightly surprised ...

If special US aid is all that takes for a people to succeed, why did so much of US aid go to waste in Africa, Latin America, Middle East, etc? US has pumped gazillions into Afghanistan, but what happened to all the money? How effective have Iraqis been with US aid? Now, compare what Israelis did with US aid.

Remind me again ... what exactly has Israel done with US aid? Aid which, on a per capita basis, vastly exceeds the aid the US has ever given to any other country.

Of course, Russians--or a handful of gangsters around Putin--eventually won out but through muscle, not brains, and largely because there's no rule of law in Russia.

The implication being, of course, that winning through brains is more moral than winning through muscle.

Unless it's whites out-braining blacks, Amerinds, or mestizos. Or Chinese out-braining Mongolians or Tibetans. Then it's evil again. But if it's Jews out-braining and out-muscling Palestinians, that's okay. And Jews muscling the cognitive elite of China and India to keep them out of their country altogether is okay, too.

That old 1960's hippie Fred is trying to take on the role of the late Hunter S. Thompson, posing as a cee-gar smoking ageless macho man and man of the world clad in a leather jacket, whereas Fred's really just a never-changed-his-mind, doped-up, hippy-dippy Lefty:

The US has played War-on-Drugs for half a century, with no results but to make drugs an integral part of the economy. The evils engendered are great. Yet the monkey can’t let go.

Let go of what, Fred? Tell us what drugs you are in favor of legalizing.

It is internationally that the monkey principle really bites. The country is well on its way to being a merely regional power militarily, economically, and diplomatically. Short of a miracle, short of a conceivable but unlikely catastrophe in China, Americans will soon be medium potatoes. There is nothing we can do about it, but we will bankrupt ourselves trying. We can’t let go.

Do you have any evidence for those dire pronouncements, Fred?

If you look beyond the Reader’s Digest patriotism of Fox News, and the high-school cheerleading of little Sarah Palin, if you look beyond the national borders, all of this is obvious.

Loathing of Sarah Palin is a sure sign that the loather is going to vote Democrat.

By Chinese standards, America is a small country, having a quarter of its population.

But China's large, aging, and gender-imbalanced population is a problem instead of a blessing.

Their economy grows at close to double digits. Yes, it may slow down, or it may not. Short of unforeseen disaster, the question is not whether but when the Chinese economy will dwarf the American economy. Tell me why this is not true.

Problems for China's economy: (1) a large, aging population; (2) lack on natural resources in China; (3) the coming era of trade protectionism in the USA and the EU.

All power springs from economic power. While America decays, plays, and sucks its thumb, China invests. Everywhere. There is nothing unprincipled in this. It is just intelligent commerce.

Yes, China has been investing a lot of its free cash into US Treasury bills and other American financial paper, which will probably turn out to be in imprudent investments. The USA will probably default on much it its bond obligations. So sorry about that, foreigners.

Do not underestimate these people of the epicanthic fold. I have lived among the Chinese, in Taiwan years ago. I liked them, and still do. I know them to be smart, disciplined, studious, practical—as well as nationalistic and very racially conscious. No, we do not think these attitudes proper. It doesn’t matter what we think.

Rather heavy on the racial stereotyping, aren't we?

Note that China has that perfect government, an intelligent dictatorship concerned with advancing the country. The American government consists of self-interested lobbies and Wall Street looters. China is run by engineers, America by lawyers. Watch.

The US is midway through an inexorable suicide. If a country does not manufacture things, it does not have an economy, and manufacturing has fled American shores. Ship-building, steel, consumer electronics, railroads: gone. You may think your HP laptop is an American product, but in all likelihood every component was made overseas and it was assembled in Taiwan.

Right-o Fred, so don't we agree that it's time for the USA to start protecting its endangered industries? Think of this as a type of ecological protection: protecting endangered North American industries protects North American human communities.

By the way Fred, Taiwan is not currently ruled by China.

The country as a whole, as always, looks inwards and doesn’t understand, doesn’t know what stirs without. Communism no longer protects America from Chinese competition.

The USA always looks inward? But Fred, in some of your other opinion screeds, you say the USA is too internationally imperialistic....

fredoneverythingDo not underestimate these people of the epicanthic fold. I have lived among the Chinese, in Taiwan years ago. I liked them, and still do. I know them to be smart, disciplined, studious, practical—as well as nationalistic and very racially conscious. No, we do not think these attitudes proper. It doesn’t matter what we think.

Rather heavy on the racial stereotyping, aren't we?

Note that China has that perfect government, an intelligent dictatorship concerned with advancing the country. The American government consists of self-interested lobbies and Wall Street looters. China is run by engineers, America by lawyers. Watch.

The US is midway through an inexorable suicide. If a country does not manufacture things, it does not have an economy, and manufacturing has fled American shores. Ship-building, steel, consumer electronics, railroads: gone. You may think your HP laptop is an American product, but in all likelihood every component was made overseas and it was assembled in Taiwan.

Right-o Fred, so don't we agree that it's time for the USA to start protecting its endangered industries? Think of this as a type of ecological protection: protecting endangered North American industries protects North American human communities.

By the way Fred, Taiwan is not currently ruled by China.

The country as a whole, as always, looks inwards and doesn’t understand, doesn’t know what stirs without. Communism no longer protects America from Chinese competition.

The USA always looks inward? But Fred, in some of your other opinion screeds, you say the USA is too internationally imperialistic....

"Putin and his hoods took over or muscled in on new industries created by Jews."

"No new industries were 'created'."

Fair enough. Jews took over moribund industries falling apart from waste and incompetence, cut out the fat and streamlined them, managed them better, brought in new investment and equipment, and modernized them. At they very least, they refurbished the old industries that had been falling apart under old communism with Soviet era 'work ethic' and technology. They had an advantage in being Jewish not only for their talent and high intelligence but in social networking with international Jews who provided expertise, advice, connections and lots of money--just like post-communist mainland Chinese gained lots of knowhow and investment from overseas Chinese. Putin and his hoods took over what the Jews had much improved. OTOH, the Jewish oligarchs were stupid if not dumb. A bit of German modesty, self-restraint, and civic mindedness would have gone a long way in winning respect from the improverished public, but they acted like a bunch of loud, brash, vulgar, and indulgent Moe Greens. They just couldn't get enough of talking big and showing off how rich they were. The nouveau riche thing.

David Davenport: Yes, China has been investing a lot of its free cash into US Treasury bills and other American financial paper, which will probably turn out to be in imprudent investments. The USA will probably default on much it its bond obligations. So sorry about that, foreigners.

Well, that's an interesting argument rebutting claims of America's decline and weakness: our government owes a gigantic amount of money to foreigners and will probably default on our national debt.

I guess that proves Venezuela was the great world powerhouse of the late 19th Century, and that Haiti and most of Sub-Saharan Africa have been the most successful nations over the last half-century.

White trash soccer mom an oxymoron? What universe have you been living in? The soccer mom is the EPITOME of White trashiness. Think chunky woman with dyed blond hair, cigarette in hand, screaming, "Go, go!" ego hanging on her son/daughter's performance on the field. White trash, thy name is soccer mom!

"Of course, Russians--or a handful of gangsters around Putin--eventually won out but through muscle, not brains, and largely because there's no rule of law in Russia."

"The implication being, of course, that winning through brains is more moral than winning through muscle.Unless it's whites out-braining blacks, Amerinds, or mestizos. Or Chinese out-braining Mongolians or Tibetans."

Two issues.

1. Brain power isn't necessarily more moral. Intelligence beats dumbness but it can be a case of evil intelligence vs good-hearted dumbness(like Tim Wise vs Sarah Palin). In the case of Russia, it was maybe a case of greedy Jews vs greedy Russians. But Jews won because they were smarter. Even if Jews pulled a lot of dirty tricks, smart people pull better dirty tricks than dumb people do.

2. Because Jews were a small disliked minority in Russia in the 90s, it's rather obvious that they won by superior wits than by social favors. (To be sure, Russian Jews were fortunate to be connected to non-Russian Jews. So, to an extent, yes, Yeltsin understood that in order to attract foreign investment and aid from the West, he needed approval from globalist Jews who control the West, especially the US. Thus, he had to go easy on Russian Jews.) In America, though whites may well be smarter than blacks, because of the long history of anti-black discrimination, it's more convenient to lay the blame of black failure on white discrimination than on lower black IQ.

"Oh, and before all you Americans out there like to sneer and feel all smug and superior by saying 'Stupid Russians, smart Jews', just consider this..."

This is a case of Stupid Americans, Smart Jews. Jews were smart enough to take over media, academia, Hollywood, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, law firms, government, etc over the yrs, so when one sector of Jewish power was hurting, others came to their rescue. Only smart people pull a good one dumb people, and could Jews have done this if they were dumb? No, they pulled it off because WE are dumb. Smarts can be used for evil as for good.

BUT, did Jews alone bring about the financial debacle? Didn't blacks, Hispanics, and even whole bunch of whites want easy loans for homes? Didn't people demand more government this, government that, etc? If government has to give us more free stuff, more money has to be printed, which leads to inflation. To offset inflation, we need cheap imports from China and Mexico. And it wasn't just Wall Street that got bailed out but all of America with stimulus, more welfare, more foodstamps, with Obamacare, unemployment checks that go on forever, etc. I don't see too many breadlines. And I doubt if Main Street will pay for this since the middle class will not accept higher taxes. And if people are gonna have more goodies and easy loans in the future(again), we are gonna need all these banks to keep giving out cash.

"Ethnic Russians" are mostly peasants and fairly unadept at business. For most of its history Russia has been controlled by an elite of mostly non-Russians. The founders of Rus were Scandinavians, the early Tsars had lots of Tatar blood, the Romanovs intermarried extensively with Western Europeans, and many of the Imperial nobility were German, Polish, Georgian, Armenian and Tatar. In many ways the Russian Revolution can be understood as an ethnic revolt of Russians against foreign rulers. However the revolt was quickly co-opted by Jews and Caucasians (and to a largely unrecognized extent ethnic Poles and Ukrainians). Look at the Soviet leaders - Lenin was part Tatar, Trotsky - Jewish, Stalin - Georgian. Khruschev and Brezhnev were both part Ukrainian. Since the fall of the USSR ethnic Russians appear to have finally gained political power, but at the price of selling the productive assets of the country to non-Russians.

"they did force a wrenching creative destruction that made some of the successes of the Putin yrs possible."

What successes? More dachas for Putin and his cronies? Or the houses in the South of France. Putin is not a "patriot" - he's simply a gangster out for personal gain. The Chinese government is run by patriots. Russia is not. China invests in infrastructure, education, and stealing technology to build the nation. Russia has wasted the last 20 years and built nothing. When the last Russian leader hands over sovereignty of the Far East to China in, oh, 30 years, Putin will be rightly vilified by real Russian patriots.

If you put it that way then the "soccer mom" could be considered white trash but that's not the general image conjured in most people's minds when they hear that term. Rather, one thinks of a woman who really dotes over her children and is driven to fill their day with educational and athletic activities while also fretting over their health and wondering whether the latest fad diet really works. In other words, the antithesis of white trash.

For most of its history Russia has been controlled by an elite of mostly non-Russians. The founders of Rus were Scandinavians, the early Tsars had lots of Tatar blood, the Romanovs intermarried extensively with Western Europeans, and many of the Imperial nobility were German, Polish, Georgian, Armenian and Tatar. In many ways the Russian Revolution can be understood as an ethnic revolt of Russians against foreign rulers. However the revolt was quickly co-opted by Jews and Caucasians (and to a largely unrecognized extent ethnic Poles and Ukrainians). Look at the Soviet leaders - Lenin was part Tatar, Trotsky - Jewish, Stalin - Georgian. Khruschev and Brezhnev were both part Ukrainian.

It's sometimes a bit difficult to distinguish sheer ignorance from total dishonesty...

Now it's certainly true that the Czars and a good slice of the ruling elite of the Russia Empire were non-Russian, but that element was almost entirely ethnic German. Offhand, I can't think of too many high Czarist noblemen or other elites who were Georgian, Armenian, or Tatar. In fact, the Bolshevik Revolution can reasonably be understood as being the exact opposite of what "peter A" claims, namely that it represented a "ganging up" of some of the subjugated minority peoples against the ruling Russian-German elite and population.

Nearly all the top Bolsheviks were Jewish, and the few important exceptions were generally from other restive minorities such as Felix Dzerzhinsky (Polish) and Stalin (Georgian), with Lenin being only part Jewish. Almost none of the revolutionary leaders were Russian or German, and offhand I can't even think of a single Ukrainian, Belorussian, or other Slav, although all these groups together probably constituted over 75% of the total population. This was a totally different generation of Soviet leadership from the 1950s or 1970s, when the top leadership mostly consisted of Russians or Ukrainians such as Khrushchev and Brezhnev. I'm hardly a Russia specialist and it's been decades since I studied any of this, but I still do remember the difference between up and down.

Perhaps "peter A" will next tell us that Irish and Italian Catholics were the central force behind the American Revolution, and point to the Kennedies and today's heavily Catholic Supreme Court as evidence of the political rewards they won as a consequence.

It's also a little strange for him to seemingly denigrate Russian economic performance. As I recall, Russia's economic growth rate during the decade or so prior to WWI was by far the fastest in all of Europe, much better than anything later achieved by the Bolsheviks despite enormous cost in blood. In fact, Russian industrial strength was growing so rapidly---it was basically the China of that era---that there was some concern among German leaders that perhaps any war between had better be fought sooner rather than later, and this was an important contributing factor to the war's outbreak.

Anonymous said... Well, Chua's childrearing methods may seem harsh, but I'll take her over the white trash soccer mom any day White Trash don't do soccer; they do youth football (game day looks like visiting day at San Quentin).

Steve, that's a facile comment and you know it. You know that "competence" to these people does not mean the same thing as it does to you and me: It means expanding the power and wealth of their group as much as they can get away with. If what you said has any relevance, it must be an amazing coidcidence that all this imcompetance just happens to have the effect of enriching the people doing it. It also just happens by some crazy coincidence to fit the pattern of behavior that has been observed by numerous men from all over the world for several thousand years.

The bottom line is that Jews were in charge of telling the Russian government how to privitize its assents and the result was that Jews, who were about 1% of the population, ended up owning most of the largest industrial concerns. The Russian people suffered greatly in this period while many Jews became extremely wealthy, just like what is happening now in America and seems to always happen when Jews get a lot of power in other people's countries.

This idea that the Jewish advisors were unaware that their fellow tribesmen were looting Russia under their watch is ludicrous. These people are hyper aware of who is member of the tribe and what their fellow tribesmen are doing.

It's also wrong to say that Jews were exculded from high positions in the Soviet Union. They were heavily over represented among the elite at all levels through the entire duration of the communist regime. When their posistion dropped from one of domination in the early post revolution period to mere overreprentation under Stalin, they whined about it. That's the extent of Soviet "anti-semitism."

On another note, am I the only one sick of reading dozens long winded of posts a week fetishizing non-whites and denigrating whites from this weirdo "adsfasdfsadf?"

This is the same freakish troll who used to go by Andrea. Does anyone have any info on this character?

Nearly all the top Bolsheviks were Jewish, and the few important exceptions were generally from other restive minorities such as Felix Dzerzhinsky (Polish) and Stalin (Georgian), with Lenin being only part Jewish."

Your mention of Dzerzhinsky got me to thinking - it's a pity he didn't live longer.....long enough so that he could have been put to death by Stalin. It would have served him right.

"It [Israel]built up the mightiest military power in the Middle East."

"In the land of the blind ..."

IDF is pound for pound, one of the best in the world.

The IDF has never been really proven. The IDF rules the Middle East, but the US has repeatedly exposed just how pathetic even the best Arab warmaking abilities are.

Israel's latest military misadventures showed the IDF to be pretty ineffective even on short punitive raids despite overwhelming military and strategic advantages. To be fair, part of this was due to Israel's inability to accept any casualties or hostages at the hands of Arabs no matter how favorable the kill ratio.

However good the IDF is, Israel itself lacks America's wide and deep a pool of a natural warriors like our Southerners, Scotch-Irish, Germanics or Anglo Saxons.

"Offhand, I can't think of too many high Czarist noblemen or other elites who were Georgian, Armenian, or Tatar"

RKU, because you're not thinking. The Nabokovs had Tatar blood, the Ulyanovs were Tatars, the Sheremet'evs were Poles/lithuanian, etc. etc. scratch any Russian noble family and you'll find very little ethnic Russian blood, especially by the late 19th century. Most of the ruling class was Western European. The real Russians were the serfs. The revolution in 1917 was not started by the Jewish leadership - they were only exploiting the wave of anger and resentment. The real violence, in 1905 and 1917, was what took place in the provinces - where peasants burned, looted and destroyed on a massive scale. Yes, the revolution was later co-opted by Jews and Caucasians, as I pointed out, but without the lingering resentment of former serfs against their former masters Russia would have never degenerated into anarchic civil war in the first place.

You also misread my post - I am denigrating Russia's economic performance since 1990. I agree with you that before 1917 Russia was well on its way to becoming a true great power - when the empire was ruled by Germans, not surprisingly, it did much better than it has ever done subsequently.

Here's the Google Wallet FAQ. From it: "You will need to have (or sign up for) Google Wallet to send or receive money. If you have ever purchased anything on Google Play, then you most likely already have a Google Wallet. If you do not yet have a Google Wallet, don’t worry, the process is simple: go to wallet.google.com and follow the steps." You probably already have a Google ID and password, which Google Wallet uses, so signing up Wallet is pretty painless.

You can put money into your Google Wallet Balance from your bank account and send it with no service fee.

Google Wallet works from both a website and a smartphone app (Android and iPhone -- the Google Wallet app is currently available only in the U.S., but the Google Wallet website can be used in 160 countries).

Or, once you sign up with Google Wallet, you can simply send money via credit card, bank transfer, or Wallet Balance as an attachment from Google's free Gmail email service. Here'show to do it.

(Non-tax deductible.)

Fourth: if you have a Wells Fargo bank account, you can transfer money to me (with no fees) via Wells Fargo SurePay. Just tell WF SurePay to send the money to my ancient AOL email address steveslrATaol.com -- replace the AT with the usual @). (Non-tax deductible.)

Fifth: if you have a Chase bank account (or, theoretically,other bank accounts), you can transfer money to me (with no fees) via Chase QuickPay (FAQ). Just tell Chase QuickPay to send the money to my ancient AOL email address (steveslrATaol.com -- replace the AT with the usual @). If Chase asks for the name on my account, it's Steven Sailer with an n at the end of Steven. (Non-tax deductible.)

My Book:

"Steve Sailer gives us the real Barack Obama, who turns out to be very, very different - and much more interesting - than the bland healer/uniter image stitched together out of whole cloth this past six years by Obama's packager, David Axelrod. Making heavy use of Obama's own writings, which he admires for their literary artistry, Sailer gives the deepest insights I have yet seen into Obama's lifelong obsession with 'race and inheritance,' and rounds off his brilliant character portrait with speculations on how Obama's personality might play out in the Presidency." - John Derbyshire Author, "Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics" Click on the image above to buy my book, a reader's guide to the new President's autobiography.